Determination of concentration of excited oxygen atoms on the basis of ion mobility in atmospheric plasma

A method is developed for determination of the concentration of excited oxygen atoms for a plasma of an upper atmosphere or gas discharge in an excited air with dissociated oxygen. The method is based on the measurement of time-dependencies for the currents of oxygen atomic ions which are formed by pulse corona discharge and move in an electric field in a drift chamber. The accuracy for the concentration of excited oxygen atoms is ∼1%, if the resolution for the time distribution function of the ion current corresponds to the relative accuracy of the ion mobility better than 1%. Accumulation of current signals by repetition of corona ionization discharge with a frequency of some kHz improves the accuracy of an express analysis for the concentration of excited oxygen atoms.